


The Hardest Thing

by surrexi



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 14:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrexi/pseuds/surrexi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For her, he could break his hearts like that. He's doing this, isn't he? (Spoilers for 4.13)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hardest Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Original 2008 Note: "I already tackled the aftermath for Rose, so now I have to have a go at what exactly was going on in the Doctor's head during the last part of Journey's End. Unsurprisingly, Ten's POV is angsty. *pets him* Thanks as ever to Nikki for being a fantastic beta."

They tow the Earth back home, the Doctor and his brilliant, wonderful, _fantastic_ companions. Harriet Jones, former prime minister (yes, he knew who she was), was right — he did choose his companions well.

He lets the TARDIS drift in the vortex for a while afterwards. He tells everyone it’s to give her a break before she has to materialize, because towing the Earth home was hard work, even with Mr. Smith’s expert assistance. He puts forth some meaningless technobabble even though he knows at least two other people in the control room see right through his falsely-cheery façade. And that’s not even counting the two of them who share his mind.

The truth is that he’s just buying himself a little more time. The TARDIS is full and noisy now, but he knows better than anyone how quickly that could change — how soon it _would_ change.

He glances at Donna, chatting animatedly with Sarah Jane, and knows he’s not just buying _himself_ time.

Jack pulls Rose away from the Doctor’s side with a knowing look in his eyes, and draws her out of the crowded console room. The Doctor watches them go, knows he owes them this time to say things they haven’t yet had time to say. Rose will have questions, and she deserves the answers.

Given what he knows he’s going to do to her later, he thinks she probably also just deserves a little time with Jack.

His gaze shifts to his other self, his mirror image with only one heart, and he sees knowledge in his eyes. They might not be psychically connected, but they still have the same mind. Of course he knows what he’s thinking.

The blue-suited Doctor crosses to stand next to the brown.

“Not that I don’t want her, because of course I do,” he says in a low voice, “but you can’t choose for her.”

The Doctor shakes his head sadly. “I won’t have to.”

Blue-suit shifts his gaze to Donna. “You can’t choose for her, either.”

The Doctor’s eyes go flat and cold. “Watch me,” he says simply.

His twin looks him in the eyes for a moment, then shakes his head as if he pities him. “You don’t have to be so lonely, you know.” He tilts his head, glances around the room. “Some of them would stay. If you asked, or if you let them.”

“I have to do what’s right.”

“For whom?”

The Doctor grits his teeth. “Everyone else,” he growls bitterly, and pushes away from the column he’d been leaning on, walks away from his too-human counterpart and everything he tempts the Doctor to take.

\----------------

Sarah Jane goes back to her son and Jack goes back to Cardiff, Martha and Mickey following him. The Doctor gets back in the TARDIS and studiously ignores his other self, who is giving him stern looks from the bench.

Rose comes up to him and touches his shoulder. “All right?” she asks softly.

“There’s time for one last trip,” he says, shrugging off Rose’s question and going to the console. “Dårlig Ulv Stranden,” he says, finally looking up and meeting his other self’s eyes. “Better known as…”

“Bad Wolf Bay,” finishes the man in the blue suit.

A few minutes later the TARDIS materializes and they pile out onto the beach, Jackie babbling at the blue-suited Doctor. Rose takes in their surroundings with some distress.

She turns to look at him accusatorially. “Hold on, this is the parallel universe, right?”

The Doctor nods. “You’re back home,” he says, nearly choking on the word. It isn’t right, his hearts scream. Her home is the blue box behind him, always will be. His head tells his hearts to shut up. What he wants doesn’t matter.

“The walls of the world are closing again,” Donna says, “now that the Reality Bomb never happened. It’s dimension retroclosure.” She smiles happily. “See, I really get that stuff now.”

Rose shakes her head, visibly upset. “No, but I spent all that time trying to find you. I’m not going back now!”

The Doctor takes a step towards her, unable to stop himself even though he knows if he touches her he won’t be able to resist the urge to throw her on the TARDIS and run, leaving his other self to the mercies of Jackie Tyler in a world without Rose. “But you’ve got to,” he says. “Because we saved the universe, but at a cost. And he’s the cost.” He glances at his blue-suited double. “He destroyed the Daleks. He committed genocide, he’s too dangerous to be left on his own.”

“You made me!” the man in blue exclaims angrily.

The Doctor ignores the voice in the back of his mind telling him that he’s the most hypocritical prick in two universes and forges ahead with words calculated to push the right buttons in Rose’s heart. “Exactly. You were born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge.” He looks back at Rose, aches to reach out to her. He keeps his hands at his side. “Remind you of someone?”

Rose doesn’t say anything, just stares at him with her eyes full of his betrayal.

“That’s me,” he says, every word a battle. “When we first met. And you made me better,” he adds. He thinks the words are woefully inadequate to describe all the ways Rose Tyler saved him, but time isn’t on his side — when has it ever been? — and he’s working under a deadline. “Now you can do the same for him.”

“But he’s not _you_ ,” Rose insists, tears in her eyes and her voice.

“He needs you,” the Doctor responds. “That’s very me.” He still can hardly stop himself from dragging her into his arms and begging her to make him stop, tell him she won’t let him do this.

“But it’s better than that, though,” Donna says from behind him. “Don’t you see what he’s trying to give you?” She looks past Rose and jerks her head at the man in blue. “Tell her, go on.”

The Doctor takes a deep breath and uses the time his other self spends explaining things to Rose to regroup.

“I look like him and I think like him,” the blue-suited Doctor is saying. “Same memories, same thoughts, same everything. Except, I’ve only got one heart.”

Rose turns to face him fully. “Which means?”

“I’m part human. Specifically the aging part. I’ll grow old and never regenerate,” he explains, gazing steadily at Rose. “I’ve only got one life. Rose Tyler.” He smiles tenderly. “I could spend it with you. If you want.”

Rose takes a tentative step towards him, and the brown-suited Doctor tries to tell himself it’s good. “You’ll grow… grow old at the same time as me?”

“Together,” he says, still smiling.

Rose raises her hand to his chest, palm resting against his single heartbeat. The Doctor forces himself to smile, when all he can think is that he’s looking at his greatest wish, except that it’s happening to someone else. Behind him, the TARDIS makes a particularly harsh grinding noise, reminding him of how little time he has left.

“We’ve gotta go,” he says brusquely, as Rose whirls around to look at him. “This reality’s sealing itself off.” A tear rolls down Rose’s cheek and he nearly steps forward and lifts his hand to brush it away. Instead, he takes a step backwards. “Forever,” he adds softly, before turning to head into the ship.

“But it’s still not right,” Rose insists, chasing after him. He stops and turns before she can reach him, before she can touch him and crumble his resolve. “Because,” Rose says, obviously searching for the words to get her point across. “The Doctor’s… still _you_ ,” she finally says.

The Doctor nods towards the man in blue, the man who is going to finally have that last unobtainable adventure. “And I’m him.”

Rose sighs in exasperation. “All right,” she says. “Both of you, answer me this.” The Doctors stand on either side of her, hands in their pockets and gazes focused on her alone. “When I last stood on this beach, on the _worst_ day of my life… what was the last thing you said to me?” She looks at the Doctor in brown expectantly. He hesitates, needs to leave or he never will and where will the universe be then? “Go on,” Rose insists. “Say it.”

He sighs. “I said ‘Rose Tyler.’”

She’s still looking at him expectantly. “Yeah, and how was that sentence going to end?”

The Doctor swallows. He can’t, he just can’t, he thinks. He wants to keep her, and he knows he can’t, and she _can’t_ ask him to say this _now_ , not now. He couldn’t say it before and he damn well can’t say it now when he has to walk away. And then he knows. He knows exactly how to make her stay here with the man in blue. The _human_ in blue, who doesn’t have the weight of the universe on his shoulders, not anymore.

“Does it need saying?” he asks. He feels like a bastard when he looks in Rose’s eyes and sees the disappointment, the pain. He tells himself that the cruelty is necessary. He can’t keep her, but she can keep him if she’ll just let him go. He’s almost relieved when she turns to look at the man in blue.

“And you, Doctor? What was the end of that sentence?”

The Doctor watches as the man in blue reaches out and touches Rose’s elbow, imagines how the leather of her jacket would feel under his hands. He imagines what it would be like to whisper the words the man in blue is now saying for Rose’s ears only, how they would flow past his lips while the strands of her hair tickled his nose. He could do it, he thinks, even though he’d lose her to her own mortality in the end. For her, he could break his own hearts like that.

He’s doing this, isn’t he?

But the universe needs him, and so when she reaches for the blue lapels and pulls the man wearing them in for a kiss, the Doctor forces a sad smile and refuses to think about all the things he wanted and how he’s about leave them forever on a windy beach in a parallel Norway.

He turns his back on Rose Tyler, and he thinks it’s the hardest thing he’s done in a thousand years of doing hard things. Then he takes his first step away from her and knows he was wrong. Getting onto the TARDIS, closing the doors on Rose Tyler, setting the coordinates and _leaving_ … that’s the hardest thing.

He glances at Donna as she cheerfully assists him in piloting the TARDIS. Harder even that what he’s about to do to her, he thinks darkly.

He hears his own voice in his head, _you can’t choose for her_. He thinks about Sarah Jane and Jack and Martha and Mickey walking away, of Rose choosing the version of him who can actually give her the words. He thinks about Harriet Jones, about Astrid Peth and River Song, about Lynda-with-a-y.

Oh yes, he thinks. _Just watch me_.


End file.
